creepypastatoofandomcom-20200214-history
The Annecy Incident
'The Annecy Incident 'by Psychopasta Chris Renaud first became involved with the project of The Secret Life of Pets in 2012, while he was still working on Despicable Me 2. At that time, Illumination's CEO Chris Meledandri pitched him an idea on a film about what pets do when their caretakers are away. While Renaud found the premise interesting he and his team did not know what form the story would take, with them at one point considering making it a murder mystery, before deciding to make something "that was a bit more relatable". The team used Jean-Jacques Sempé as an influence in designing the environment and attention was specifically paid to keep the designs "very vertically oriented". In keeping with the tradition of old WB cartoons, the owners faces are almost never seen. The home of the Flushed Pets was created to "hint at the darker side" of pet ownership "without, hopefully, getting too heavy. as well as to explore "this whole mythology in New York of the world that’s unseen, " while still maintaining the pet theme. The animation was created entirely in France by Illumination Mac Guff. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 75% based on 208 reviews with an average rating of 6.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Fast-paced, funny, and blessed with a talented voice cast, The Secret Life of Pets offers a beautifully animated, cheerfully undemanding family-friendly diversion." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 61 out of 100 based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews." But... That was all after, the infamous Annecy Incident. The early stages of production on the film was completely monstrous. The production was in some sort of development hell, until it was first aired in the Annecy International Animated Film Festival. They were to produce and release the film, and they wanted results as quickly as possible. Chris Renaud harassed the animators and plot developers constantly. Chris tried everything to eliminate they're efforts to deviate from the film's formula, even at times threatening to fire the workers. Chris sent notes on revisions that they thought would improve the film. They insisted through their notes which all read: The film needs 'emotion'. They revised the film so hard to meet the deadlines that it resulted in some rather interesting changes. In order to achieve emotion, the film became quite a lot darker. Max became a wildly unlikeable character, much narcissistic and far less comedic. Chloe's role in the story was far more prevalent, often flirtatious towards the male characters, and skinny instead of fat. Duke was referred to at this point in production as "Justin". He is slightly to himself and is basically a Great Dane. He is even more deluded and ignorant of his surroundings. Employees worked literally 24/7 nonstop. Many of the initial writers quit due to the stress it was putting on their personal lives, much to the distress of the remaining crew. There were two of the five writers left and only one of the three story board artists. It was maddening. But, in June 12, 2016, Jean-Jacques Sempé thought to himself this exactly. The film needed emotion. It needed to be darker, more cynical. It needed more adult humor and situations. It needed an attitude. Of course! All of those days bent over a desk, and all you needed was emotion. Why didn't you listen sooner? The crew gave the film, emotion... The story reels were flown over with the main crew to the head offices at Illumination Entertainment. The date was June 16, 2016, Annecy International Animated Film Festival. The film stars Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Kevin Hart, Steve Coogan, Ellie Kemper, Bobby Moynihan, Lake Bell, Dana Carvey, Hannibal Buress, Jenny Slate and Albert Brooks. The plot of the movie is as it follows: A Jack Russell Terrier named Max lives with his owner Katie in a Manhattan apartment. While she is at work during the day, he hangs out with other pets in the building: tabby cat Chloe, pug Mel, dachshund Buddy, and budgerigar Sweet Pea. Max just brags about how he was the only one for Katie, and all the pets there just nod their heads, knowing that he was becoming more and more of a whore monger. One day, Katie adopts Duke, a Great Dane from the pound, leaving Max jealous because of her divided focus on Duke (or Justin). Enraged by Max's attitude towards him, Justin tries to abandon Max in an alley, but they are both attacked by cats led by Sphynx cat Ozone who removes both dogs' collars and leaves them to be caught by Animal Control. This is when the film becomes much lifeless, much like Stephen Gammell's infamous illustrations for the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series. Duke fears that he will be killed if he goes back to the pound. When Gidget, a white Pomeranian who is (not so) secretly in love with Max, discovers that he is missing, she decides to find him. Max and Duke (Justin) are rescued by a white rabbit named Snowball, the leader of "The Flushed Pets"—a gang of sewer-dwelling animals who hate humans because their owners mistreated them. After Max and Duke pretend to despise humans as much as they do by saying they killed their owners, the Flushed Pets invite them to join. Before they can prove their loyalty by allowing a one-fanged viper to bite them, Snowball learns from the cats that Max and Duke are domesticated. The two dogs escape the sewers and board a ferry to Brooklyn, inadvertently killing the viper in the process. Snowball vows to kill them and leads the Flushed Pets after them. This is where static began to envelop the screen for eleven seconds. Then it cuts to Gidget recruiting a red-tailed hawk named Tiberius to find Max, but he mistakenly locates Ozone, whom Gidget coerces into telling what he knows about the dogs. This is where things get out of hand. When Gidget smacks Ozone around, Ozone began to become angry and yells at Tiberius to make her stop harassing him. He even yelled out the word “Goddamn”. Tiberius grabs Ozone and tosses him off the rooftop instead. Ozone falls off the building and lands on the concrete with a sudden crack. He did land on his feet as he quoted, but the bones in his legs broke from the landing. Tiberius and Gidget heard Ozone screaming and yelling in pain, but they ignore it, and continued they're search for Max and Duke. With grim expressions on they're faces. They then enlist Mel, Buddy, Chloe, guinea pig Norman and Sweet Pea. On the way, they meet Pops, an old Basset Hound who helps Gidget and the pets find Max. Meanwhile, Max and Duke raid a sausage factory for food. Then, Gidget and her team encounter Snowball, who vows to kill them as well, and Norman is captured as the rest of Gidget's team flees. Then Gidget saw a new character enter the frame, a hooded man wearing torn jeans. He looked like the character, Vector, from the previous film Despicable Me, only, he was dressed as a crackhead. He grabs her, and pulls out a switchblade out of the pocket of his hooded jacket, saying, chuckling to himself, “I've got to start eating at home more.” The scene faded to Duke telling Max about his previous owner, Fred, an elderly man who adopted him as a puppy and loved spending time with him. The quality on the film then becomes much less refined. Do to the static enveloping the screen more often. It fades to a black screen, and, that's it. Just a black screen. Then, for what felt like an eternity, the people heard someone whispering something. Then, out of nowhere, they all heard someone saying, what sounded like one of the voice actors saying in the background, "What was that...?" And one of them saying, "I have no idea..." Then the clip fades to what the people assumed as a sideshow of every tombstone of family pets with the song, "Bernadette" by IAMX, playing in the background. Then some red text appeared that reads, "It Was More Fun In Hell", and the film finally ends. The people there was indeed petrified by the imagery, behavior, and grotesque humor they showed in the film. But the crew there did point out who was behind all of this. Chris Renaud, was found in his office, hanging by a noose. He somehow drove himself insane by the amount of workflow, and decided to push the envelop on Illumination Entertainment, to create this, Frankenstein monster, of the family film we watch to this day. The film was a huge success after they cleaned up the milk Chris had spilled, and everything went down smoothly. But what remained of The Annecy Incident, had completely vanished from existence. Until now, as one of the crew members looked back at the story reels from the whole incident. What he saw, made him uneasy. The tombstones from the sideshow clips... Had the names of the characters from the film. Category:Psychopasta Category:Animals